Beirut Bits ’n Prints
Team
Name: Omar Karout
Nationality: Syrian-Turkish
Institution / Company: Altinbas University – Istanbul
Name: Fatima Ayesh
Nationality: Syrian-Turkish
Institution / Company: Altinbas University – Istanbul
-HONOURABLE MENTION of HEALING Competition
On the 4th of August 2020, a massive explosion hit Beirut, Lebanon. The capital is undergoing an economic crisis, fighting a pandemic, and recovering from the aftermath. Within seconds, around 300,000 people were left homeless. Windows were blown off, about 6,200 buildings were damaged, and shatters of glass filled the ground.
This situation requires months, if not years, to overcome, so we thought of a cost-effective yet social distance considerate way to exploit Beirut’s ruins to rebuild it within few days. The tons of glass and building remains transform into 3d-printed micro-neighbourhoods installed into scaffolding structures.
We wanted to provide Beirut with mass-produced portable architecture attentive to minimum needs of liveable spaces that can offer urban communities a level of individualism. Brickwork facing bond inspired us to design a shape grammar driven by social distancing. Scaffoldings with one-way entrance, one-way exit and studied circulation are set up in place of collapsed buildings. Next, crowdfunded self-sufficient robot-trucks stay at each site, recycle the glass and ruins returning them into their raw materials, 3d-print the modules from the resulting mixture and lastly install them into the scaffolding. Each living unit offers a balcony and prefabricated interior fixed to efficiently fit two people.
#homeless #alternative_technologies
